Musings at the Airport Part 2: All That Baggage

As I walk through the airport I struggle with my carry-on luggage and my personal item. I’ve filled them both to the brim and they are heavy! I notice that everyone has done the same thing because we look exactly the same. We are hunched over a bit from the weight of the things we need to take with us on this journey.

These bags are bulky and heavy! Sure, travel experts and designers work tirelessly to make the task of carrying our important things easier for us. We have handles, wheels, special pockets for organization. All in full support of us carrying those things we can’t or won’t live without. We call them the necessities in life and we grasp onto it afraid to let it go. Because what would happen if we did? We might miss it! And we won’t let it go for a second! Don’t let the baggage out of your sight. Something might happen to it. We’ve been properly trained to be paranoid about baggage theft. Thank you TSA!

But back to me and my thoughts about my travel luggage. My heavy stuff. My things I can’t let go of and leave behind. My baggage is a burden to me as I carry it through the airport, stand in line for coffe, and babysit it at the gate. My burden that I can’t let go of. It hurts me to have to carry it but I can’t let it go. It’s mine. I know it. I need it. It’s my stuff.

Y’all see where I’m going with this? Let me step on your toes and get a little personal! We carry the emotional burdens of our past, struggles in our present, and worries about the future with us wherever we go, whatever we do. And we hold onto it with a death grip similar to our baggage at the airport.

We are afraid to be without those burdens. Sometimes they feel like the clothes on our back. So warm, so familiar. So often we identify ourselves by our burdens and hurts. Let’s face it, they’ve made us who we are. But do those emotional pains dictate who you are today? Does your baggage in life own you? Or have you, through Christ, conquered it? Now it is time for me to get personal. Twenty years ago I was diagnosed with Stage 2 Breast Cancer. When I was first diagnosed  I considered myself a victim of this terrible disease. I was covered with physical scars from multiple surgeries. I bore emotional scars of the things I was never able to experience, such as bearing my own child. It was a bad kind of baggage to cling to but I did. Yes, all of it was true but I had to move beyond the victim mentality and allow the Lord to heal me, to use me. I became a survivor both mentally and physically. I became victorious as I allowed God to teach me more about who I am in Him. I gained a deeper knowledge of how God is my forever provider and that He will take care of me no matter what. I grew stronger. I became more sympathetic and helped walk with other friends who were diagnosed with breast cancer. God used me. He worked in me and through me. Because He is no respecter of person, He desires to do the same thing for you…if you will lay that baggage down. His word says in Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

Yes we all have those scars that are reminders of where life took us. But God desires to heal you. He wants to use the pain and heaviness to make you stronger through the storms. We act like corks in a bottle when we hold onto the baggage because we stop the healing flow of the Lord.

1 Peter 5:10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

What if we laid it down? What if we took that risk of setting the luggage down trusting that God would take care of us? What would that look like for you? Honestly? No one knows! But it’s taking that initiative. That first step. Just set it down at the feet of Jesus and feel the freedom, the lightness of traveling without the additional stuff. Can you feel the peace of God wash over you? That’s what He wants for you. To set it down. To let it go. To trust him like never before. Oh the freedom and healing, the growth that could happen. Are you ready for your trip without all the junk? God’s got you!